Jim Donaldson: More nonsense from Rex Ryan

Tuesday

Oct 16, 2012 at 6:38 PM

Why does Rex Ryan say things like this about the Patriots?“I want them to know — and they know — that I think we’re going to beat them,” the Jets colorful coach said Monday. “Look, I recognize they’re...

Why does Rex Ryan say things like this about the Patriots?

“I want them to know — and they know — that I think we’re going to beat them,” the Jets colorful coach said Monday. “Look, I recognize they’re a great football team and [Bill] Belichick’s a great coach. I’ve never once said he wasn’t. But we’re not going to back down or concede anything.

“They’re going to get our best shot. We know we’re going to get theirs. So it really doesn’t matter who says what, but we’re going to be ourselves. We’re coming up there to take our swing. We’ll see if we land that punch to win the game.”

Is Ryan punch-drunk?

Why does he say that stuff?

Not the stuff about beating the Patriots.

I get that.

That’s just Rex being Rex, talking some trash, having some fun.

It’s the stuff about the Patriots being a great team that baffles me.

I mean, the Jets will be in Foxboro in five days, and judging by that comment it appears that Ryan hasn’t watched any video of the Pats from this season.

A great team? The Patriots?

That’s a ridiculous thing to say, even for Ryan, who’s been known to make some outrageous statements.

The Patriots are 3-3.

That makes them an average team right now.

A mediocre team.

Not a great team.

It also makes them an underachieving team, since they should be no worse than 5-1.

They shouldn’t have lost their home opener to the Cardinals, who just lost to the Bills in Arizona. In case you’ve forgotten, Buffalo had lost its two previous games by the lopsided scores of 45-3 to San Francisco and 52-28 to New England.

The Patriots led the Ravens, 30-21, with less than five minutes left in Baltimore, but wound up losing, 31-30, on a last-second field goal after the Ravens drove from their own 21 to the N.E. 9 in the final 1:55.

And they certainly shouldn’t have lost this past Sunday in Seattle, when they led the Seahawks and their rookie quarterback, Russell Wilson, 23-10, midway through the fourth quarter.

But while Tom Brady and the Pats couldn’t score a touchdown in the second half, Wilson threw for two TDs in the final 7:21, the game-winner coming on a 46-yard pass down the middle of the field to wide-open wide receiver Sidney Rice with 1:18 left to play.

So while the Patriots have the potential to be a very good team — and given the weakness of the division, they’re still very much the team to beat in the AFC East — they’re not playing very well right now.

Rex was right when he pointed out that Belichick deserves to be called a great coach.

He has, after all, been to five Super Bowls, winning three of them, and has led the Patriots to the AFC East title three years in a row, and eight of the last nine.

But he’s not doing such a great job at the moment.

And neither are either of his coordinators, offensive guru Josh McDaniels and defensive boss Matt Patricia.

“Certainly, the end of the game is the most critical part of the game and we need to be better,” said McDaniels, who was seen as a rising star when he left New England to become head coach of the Broncos in 2009, at the age of 33.

But he never made it through even his second season in Denver, getting fired with four games left in the 2010 season and the Broncos struggling at 3-9.

He caught on with the Rams as offensive coordinator for the 2011 season. But when Steve Spagnuolo was fired at the end of the year, St. Louis wasn’t eager to retain the services of McDaniels, even though his contract ran through 2012, and he had no objection to his returning to New England.

“We need to be able to close out games when we get that opportunity,” McDaniels after the Patriots put up just six points on Seattle in the second half and went three-and-out after the Seahawks scored a touchdown to cut their deficit to 23-17 late in the fourth quarter.

The Seattle setback was a team collapse, with McDaniels’ offensive unit quickly giving the ball back to the Seahawks, who shredded Patricia’s highly-suspect secondary in the waning minutes.